Trigger warnings for whining, whingeing, bitching, moaning, groaning and griping.
I had to log out of wp on this app and stupidly left my 4 or 5 drafts as local ones… logged back in and naturally and as surely as a magician wafts a silk handkerchief over a top hat, they were all gone. RIP little post foetuses. On the upside, I shall now refer to them repeatedly and wistfully as ‘the posts that got away’ and claim that they were brilliant etc.
{Wtf blah stop typing shit now.}
Yesterday was a little weird. It started well, with a sunset walk, followed by a surprising amount of housework, but when I was washing dishes, tears appeared – the hot kind that seem to leak down your face in sheets. I could probably generate more words for tears than penguins can for snow. The phrase ‘kitchen sink drama’ slithered across my mindscape and I grinned inwardly at it all. I’d already done a bit of embroidery that morning, vacuumed, fixed an outlet pipe, fetched water from the rainwater tank… Chop wood, carry water much?
After that, my day was fairly fucked. I think I cried my way through doing the laundry and hanging it out. I know I sat on the floor and cried for a bit, and that my dog retreated rapidly and stared from a safe distance. I was sitting at the top of my steps, weeping gently, when my neighbour walked in. She asked me what was wrong, I told her a sanitised version, she rubbed my back sympathetically. She said she had to go and have breakfast with the bf, and asked if I needed anything. I said I’d run out of fruit and she replied, “sorry, that’s the only thing I can’t help you with.” A bit later, before I walked to the shop, I stuck my head through her (open) front door to see if she needed anything. She took a naartjie off the top of a very large and full fruit bowl and said, “well at least I can give you that”.
The Internet had been down the night before and was still down until late afternoon yesterday. I’ve probably mentioned before, that my WiFi comes from a mast on a dune; the solar panels and so forth had been stolen from it. It’s the second time it’s happened and it takes a while for them to get new parts, then climb the dune to fix it. I hope they don’t decide it’s not worth their while having a mast here. Their security is stupidly crappy.
By then, the raincloud over my head had shifted to ear level. I messaged nextofkin and here’s how that went…
Me: how are things?
NoK: same old, same old.
Me: I don’t actually have anything to say, I’m just touching base.
NoK: me too really.
Nextofkin is a truly lovely person and would have listened and understood. There’s not a lot they can do from 6,000 miles away though, and so by the time I’d reached the second sentence of that chat, I felt distant and muted. Sometimes the skin hunger feels like an open wound. Sometimes I’m desperate for a real hug. My closest friend here is kind, but not cuddly. I read some fluffy existentialism instead; the tl;dr of which, is basically that knowing that life has no meaning is freedom, because you are free to find or forge your own. I can’t even face the drive to the nearest town.
The butterfly that stamps and causes tidal waves needs to stop tap dancing on my fucking head.
… well I wrote the preceding babble at around five this morning. I was extremely surprised to see that it made sense and wasn’t full of errors. I went back to sleep afterwards and when I woke, I felt OK. Brought in yesterday’s laundry and put another lot in, filled the sink with dirty dishes and hot soapy water; I think the soak cycle is very important don’t you? It’s not procrastination at all… I was making my bed and putting away stuff, when I found something (it doesn’t matter what) that kneed me violently right in the memories. It happened yesterday too, with something else. Tears welled up and pooled in my lower eyelids and I glared at the sink, wondering if I shouldn’t just embrace the kitchen sink melodrama and go and wash the fucking dishes with saltwater again.
But then the phrase ‘kneed me violently in the memories’ sauntered into my thoughts and so I sat down to write that paragraph instead. Blah ‘I brake for words’ polar, at your service. Don’t get excited, I said that in the manner of Balin upon meeting Bilbo. The book, not the 15 year mega epic saga films, orcdammit.
…
I managed to do the dishes and scrub the microwave without weeping into either. Then I sat down, told my friend about the things I found and the fecking tears welled up again. Where do they go, when they do that without spilling, then stop? I have some wise crone domestic god advice to give you. Putting hot chocolate powder into your dog’s bowl is not the best way to make it. Reaching into the fridge and grabbing a bottle of tomato sauce to drink is just stupid. Please note that the water is in a five litre bottle, while the sauce occupies a whole 750ml. I graduated from putting the butter in the bin and rubbish into the fridge a long time ago. Soon the washing machine will make a noise like tinnitus and I will obey its call; I am at the mercy of household appliances this weekend, it seems. If the vacuum cleaner looks at me funny, I’m just going to leg it.
Did I already tell you I cleared the dogshit from the garden? The heights of glitz and glamour in my life know no limit.
Anyfeckingway, the tears were banished, a cigarette was rolled and here I am, lolling indolently on the couch, watching the clouds go by and emptying my head here. I hope you took note of the fact that a butch woman can be in touch with her feminine side… That’s the societal conditioning edition of feminity™, which isn’t even remotely related to feminism® by marriage. I can turn anything into a monologue on identity politics, have you noticed? *flexes* I can embroider your name and beat up your boyfriend. I cut my embroidery thread with a hunting knife that I call the zebra peeler. Rawr etc etc.
I wouldn’t, but I could.
Too busy today though, a housebutch’s work is never done.
I wrote you guys a limerick, I hope you like it. If you do, help yourself and do whatever you want with it.
